


Quenched, Consumed, Satisfied

by inquisitorsmabari



Series: In Our Hearts [2]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Alcohol Abuse, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Modern with Magic, Angst, Casual Sex, F/M, Fluff, M/M, Modern Thedas, One Night Stands, References to Depression, Sexual Content, Smut, Strangers to Lovers, mentions of abuse, prompt collection, see chapter titles, some nsfw
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-05
Updated: 2019-03-31
Packaged: 2019-05-16 11:29:46
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 21,246
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14810520
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inquisitorsmabari/pseuds/inquisitorsmabari
Summary: Or, behind the scenes of In Our Hearts, showing some of the moments not seen in the main story, extra romance plots, dates, drama, all the things that didn't quite make the cut or just deserved their own space!





	1. Midnight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cullen is at the New Year's ball. But he feels out of place, lost, until he see's a familiar face on the dancefloor.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is Cullen's POV of Chapter 18, so you'll have to read that first for it to make much sense (otherwise, just go with it I guess?). Chapter 20 follows on from this too, so you can always read that afterwards.

Cullen wanted nothing more than to sulk away and go home. But he could imagine the scolding he would get if he was caught leaving before the clock struck midnight, and it was the fear of Cassandra Pentaghast and her scowl that kept him on his feet, and kept him going to the bar in search of more drinks. It was bad enough when he’d refused to wear that red jacket, but at least he had everyone else to back him up.

That was another thing, where in the name of Andraste had everyone gone? He had seen Cassandra patrolling the venue, checking up on her colleagues or talking to dignitaries. But the rest of his colleagues appear to have disappeared. The last he’d seen of Barris was was when he’d declared loudly that he was taking the plunge and diving into the dancefloor that was heaving with people. Bull was off with Maker knows who, he'd last seen him getting a little too cosy with a man by the bar. And Rylen was off talking to some girls at the bar, because of course he was. He could hear the giggling from here, and it made him want to throw up.

He ordered himself another drink, a whiskey, because it was the kind of night where the sharp taste of a dry whiskey was needed, as well as the strength of a spirit to keep him from bolting out of the door and returning to the safety of his home. And as he drank, he watched his friend smile and flirt his way into a poor young girls heart until she caved to his affections and they sauntered off towards the dancefloor hand in hand. 

That was when he went to take another swig, his eyes turning back to the drink in front of him. But then, he whirled around, his eyes racing back towards the space where his friend had stood, caught by a flash of ginger red hair and a purple sparkling dress as she turned to survey the room. Their eyes were locked, and he felt his heart racing beneath the heavy layers of his suit which was now damp with sweat. He had seen that dress before, hanging from a wardrobe door on a sleepy Saturday morning. It was _hers_.

She had caught hold of him again, just as she had before in that bar all those Fridays ago, with sparkling emerald eyes hidden behind a mask and hair as bright as a raging fire. But he had none of Rylen’s charm, all he did was stand there looking dumbstruck as he watched the girl who had stolen his heart stare nonchalantly into the distance. He should go over, talk to her, tell her how he felt, his regret, his longing, his shame. But he couldn’t, he didn’t know how. And, soon, she turned away, and sauntered towards the dancefloor, and he was left to stand there, alone.

Had she recognised him, with his face hidden behind the plain silver mask that Cassandra had made him wear? Unlikely, and even if she had, why would she come anywhere near him? Amelie Trevelyan was an enigma who's answer was now lost to him, and he would have to live with that regret for the rest of his life.

He finished his drink, and sauntered away from the bar with a heavy heart. He had no idea where he had intended to go, or where he wanted to go. But a surge of people swarming onto the dancefloor in the middle of the room pushed him into the crowd, until he was all but stuck in the throng of people who gazed longingly at the screen at the front of the room, arm in arm with their elegantly dressed partners while he stood there, alone, and silently wishing he could be anywhere else. But if he could just keep his head down for one minute, then everyone would leave, and he could escape.

Except he couldn’t keep his head down, because, out of the corner of his eye, he spotted a streak of red.

She was alone too, lost in the sea of revelry that took place around them, her eyes turned towards the front of the room as people coupled up around her. And as he watched her, his legs began to move, one by one, slowly, deliberately, and soon, without him even knowing, he was next to her. 

She turned to him with emerald green eyes that were lost, confused, dazed, appearing to focus on anything but him until they did, and he was enraptured, starstruck, sure, sure of what he wanted to do, what he _had_ to do. And as people around them broke into cheers and embraced their partners, he leant forward, took her in his arms, and kissed her as if it were the end of the world, and he would never get to enjoy the sweet taste of red wine on her soft lips ever again.

He didn’t know what he was hoping for when he pulled away, but what he got was a look of confusion which evolved into a look of knowing. She stepped away ever so slightly, looking at every detail of his face that wasn’t covered by his mask before her eyes fell on the scar on his lips, the one which tore through his face and gave him that awful crooked smile. But her eyes widened, and she seemed to freeze in front of him, before she said those words that he would never forget.

“I know you,” Her words were a whisper spoken in the quietest words, but they echoed around the room like a clap of thunder, cutting through him like a knife to the heart. And, suddenly, everything was closing in on him, his heart was racing, and he did something so stupid, that the regret would come almost instantly. He walked away, and he continued to walk away even when she called after him. 

Maker, what had he done?

He sunk onto a sofa in a dark corner of the room that he thought was near the exit, from the burst of refreshing cold air that hit him as he sat down and buried his face in his hands. He was an idiot, a Class A idiot. She had been right there, in his arms, so close to him that he could smell that familiar smell of the floral perfume she had always worn on their trips to the bar, the one which had clung to her skin even as they woke the next morning, filling his nostrils as he kissed every inch of her. 

That was his chance, his chance to make things right, and he had walked away.

He sunk back into the chair with his hands in his hair as he watched the crowd disperse from the dancefloor one by one, some of them alone, some of them hand in hand with their partners who, in the case of Rylen at least, they looked at with starstruck awe. His new friend was clinging to his hand, looking up at him with a sweet smile as she made her apologies and turned away from him, dropping his hand with some reluctance on both parts, and heading into the door to Cullen’s right. He looked back at Rylen, who was now standing on the edge of the dancefloor with his hand hovering in the air and his mouth agape, and decided to at least go and try to revive some sense into his friend.

“Rylen?” He asked as he approached with some degree of care, as if he were approaching a feral wolf. 

“What?” He jumped back, looking at Cullen with fearful eyes before letting out a heavy sigh. “Maker, Cullen, you scared me.”

“Who's your friend?” He asked, looking back at the girl with the chestnut hair as she walked away slowly, moving to join someone who appeared to tower over her.

“No one,” Rylen said far too quickly, suppressing his words with a cough as he turned his attention towards the bar. “Fancy another drink?”

“No, not really,” He said, looking at his friend with an air of suspicion, before turning his gaze back to the two girls who were leaving the building. The girl he had been with was small, petite, with brown hair that reached down to her upper back. But the girl she stood next to was much taller, towering over her companion as she walked with confidence in her heels, her purple dress billowing in the breeze which entered through the open door. Bright red hair lapped at her shoulders with an unrivalled intensity until she turned, looked briefly at the pair of them, and walked away.

He turned to his friend, who was standing with his arms crossed and his eyes cast to the floor, an aura of pink rising into his cheeks as he avoided Cullen’s gaze. “Why was she with Amelie?” He looked back, watching the girls as they left the Cathedral hand in hand, and Amelie Trevelyan walked out of his life once again. 

Except she wouldn’t, not this time. He walked towards the door, following in her footsteps as Rylen hurried next to him with his shorter legs hurrying to catch up. “What are you doing, Cullen?” He asked as he scuttled along beside him. “What’s going on?”

He turned back to Rylen, stopping for just a second to watch his friend with a determined air. “I’m going after her,” He told him, turning back to the point where she had stood, where her beautiful red hair had billowed in the night air and her tall frame stood elegantly against the night. “Don’t bother trying to stop me.”

He turned away from his friend, and walked out into the night.

 


	2. The Master of Easton Hall

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lionel Trevelyan is known by many for the recent scandal surrounding his broken marriage, but getting to know the man behind the headlines is something of a rare opportunity. So take this chance while you can, and dive into a day in the life of Bann Trevelyan's only son.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is designed to follow on from Chapter 22 of In Our Hearts but if you haven't read it yet, don't worry too much. You should be able to follow this fairly easily.
> 
> Content warning: POV character has depression and although it isn't explicitly mentioned it obviously affects his outlook on life. So if this is going to be potentially triggering don't read.
> 
> Also, Eatson Hall isn't a canon place. I just made it up.

The sun had already begun to set over Easton Hall when Lionel Trevelyan’s car was pulling into the gravelled courtyard, and shadows had begun to fall on the snow covered grounds. It looked even more bleak than usual in the dim light of a winter evening, the flowers in their beds had long gone into hiding, and the house itself looked cold and uninviting. What was worse, to him, was the feeling of dread that suffocated him as he rose from the car and realised that, once again, no noise would erupt from the large, empty halls as he crossed the threshold, not even the cold words of his ex wife or the ear splintering screech of his children. No one but Agnes would be there to greet him today, and possibly for the rest of his life.

“Good evening, Master Trevelyan,” Agnes greeted him with her usual drawl as he marched across the threshold with his luggage in hand as swarmed around the entrance making themselves look busy. “I hope you had a nice time in Val Royeaux?”

“Of course, Aggie, when have I not enjoyed a night of drinking and debauchery?” His words earned him a fresh scowl from the older woman, but all he could do was grin. At least one thing around here had stayed the same. 

“Well, I know it’s getting late, but they’re working on dinner for you now,” She told him as people hovered around him, gathering his coat and bags and scurrying off up the stairs. “And I didn’t know if you were going riding, so I got some riding clothes out for you upstairs.”

“Oh no, I won’t tonight,” He shook his head as he looked down at his watch. “It’s late and I’m tired, but I will head up before dinner.”

“Of course,” She said, bowing her head ever so slightly as she indicated towards the porch. “Your boots are by the front door.”

“Lovely, thanks Aggie,” He did a half skip, half jog, back towards the door as he pulled off his smart black shoes and grabbed the old, worn boots which sat on the cold stone floor. He would likely regret pulling them over his expensive black trousers rather than getting changed into something more suitable, but in that moment, he couldn’t care less. Although he did spare a thought to run back inside and scoop some apples into his pockets.

The sun had sunk even further into the horizon when he left his house again, but this time the sky was less bleak and murky. It was a dazzling mosaic of golds and oranges, pinks and deep purple, which cast a golden light amongst the snow covered grounds of his family home. But no, it was _his_ home now, he had to remember that.

The stables were far from his home, he had been desperate to move them closer but Jen had always protested on the grounds that they smelt, and possibly because she knew that he would never leave them ever again if he had done so. It was his safe space, one of the few places where he felt truly comfortable, and truly, truly happy, although the two empty stables that sat either side of his own made stomach churn now. But today he wouldn’t have to see that, wouldn’t have to be reminded of the two ponies that had once sat in those stalls, because as he approached, he saw his horse Ellie standing tall and proud on the horizon, framed by the golden light of the setting sun.

She watched him as he approached with her ears raised to the sky, but as soon as he was at the fence to the paddock, she sauntered off with a huff. “Oh come on,” He sighed, leaning against the wooden fence as he watched her swish her long tail in an act of defiance. “I was only gone for two days.”

She turned to face him then, but remained out of reach, standing a metre or two away from him with her head in the air as if she hadn’t even noticed that he was there. But it wasn’t hard to win her back over again, almost as soon as he took an apple out of his pocket, she began to shuffle over and investigate, huffing and shoving her nose in his face as he took a bite from the apple, leaving a fresh trail of horse saliva which ran all over his cheek. “Alright, I brought one for you too.”

She dived into his hand almost as soon as it left his pocket, and that’s when he got her, his free, but now saliva covered, hand reaching up to stroke the soft white fur that went in a trail down her head, stark against the chestnut brown that covered the rest of her body. It never took much for her to forgive him, that’s what made her so easy to be around. There was at least one of the Maker’s creatures who didn’t think badly of him, even if it was because he brought her food. “I’m sorry I had to leave you again,” He said to her as she sat patiently while he stroked her neck, just as she used to when he had brought the boys up here. Ellie put up with a lot of shit, but then he liked to think she was well looked after. “I had to go though, I’ll take any chance I can get to see Amelie.” 

The sun was getting lower now, so low that without the light which glowed from inside the stable, he would soon begin to struggle to see anything more than an arm width away from him. But luckily, Ellie was pretty hard to miss, because he had no intention of returning to Easton Hall until he absolutely had to.

“You know Amelie and I used to be best friends?” He talked at the horse in front of him as if she could understand, as if she really cared. But then it was something he often did, the stablehands had long since abandoned the concerned looks they used to give him each time they spotted him talking to his own horse. But then it wasn’t unusual for people to find him weird. “We were almost like twins until they took her away. Now I don’t know if we’ll ever get that close again.”

Ellie shook her head and huffed so heavily that a cloud of warm air hit him in the face. “Thanks for that,” He sighed, scrunching up his face as the smell of horse breath began to dissipate. “But last night was fun, and I did meet a guy.”

She huffed again, but this time, he had to laugh. “Yeah I know, I meet lots of guys,” He chuckled, finishing off his own apple before throwing the core on the floor for her to scurry round and find. “But it went a bit further this time, I woke up this morning and he was still there. Amazing, I know.”

As soon as she had finished the abandoned apple core, she came back up for more, burrowing her nose into his empty hands as she looked for more treats. “I don’t have anymore,” He told her, earning a disapproving look that could have rivalled even father’s. “I won’t bore you for much longer, it’s getting pretty cold out here.” His breath had turned to fog before him and the golden light of the setting sun had turned to a deep, ominous blue, the two moons beginning to light up the snow at their feet. “But I didn’t want to tell them all about it, so you have to hear it instead. They might tease me otherwise, or might jinx it, I don’t know.” He shrugged, looking towards the stables where the two stablehands were stood with the arms folded against the cold waiting for him to relieve them. With a sigh, he called to them and dismissed, and they slumped off towards the house and left the two of them alone.

It wasn’t like he didn’t know what he was doing anyway, and leaving now would only make Ellie more grumpy. So he climbed into the paddock and led her in himself, talking to her the entire way as if she even had the ability to understand him or as if she would even care. But she couldn’t argue, so that was something.

“It does feel silly, keeping it from them,” He told her as she plodded along beside him, picking her way across the snow covered field until they eventually made their way to the stable, which was hardly any warmer than it was outside. “But it was so different to all the others, normally it’s a 30 minute wonder, you know?” She went into the stable with ease, of course, she had done this a hundred times in her life, and she rarely went outside of the Easton Estate. “Well, you don’t know, because I’m talking to a horse.”

She seemed to agree with that, huffing at him as he hung up all the paraphernalia that came with owning a horse, dropped the last apple he had been hiding in her bundle of hay, and left the stable, closing the stable door behind him. “But anyway, it was nice to talk to someone for once,” He sighed, leaning on the stable door with his head resting on his arms as Ellie munched on the last apple. “And I can’t deny I was happy to see that he was still there when I woke up.”

He looked down at his watch and sighed as he watched the hand creep towards seven o’clock as if it were taunting him. He knew it was time to leave, time to face the cold winds as he made the trek back to his home. “I have to go,” He told her apologetically, giving her one last pat on the neck as she looked at him with what he thought was a sulking glare. “I’ll be back tomorrow morning, I’ll take you out for a ride.” That seemed to satisfy her, or not, she waltzed off the other side of the stable, swishing her tail at him in one last act of defiance. 

Slowly, and with a heavy heart, he turned to leave, walking past the empty, barren stable that had once held his son’s brown pony as he did so. It was now dark outside, so dark that Easton Hall lit up like a decorated Satinalia tree, but he still had no desire to make the long walk towards it. His legs felt as heavy as the weight in his heart but slowly, and surely, he found his way home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is entirely unecessary but it's kind of like a character study, it helped me get into his head a bit and explore what he did outside of the plot. I may do one for Claudette? But I will see how this is received and if i come up with anything.


	3. Gambit

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Easton Hall is once again filled with voices and laughter, but for Lionel Trevelyan, all it serves as is a painful reminder of what came before. And a conversation with Marcus Alessi only makes those memories more painful.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is designed to be a bridge between Chapters 27 and 28 so it's best if you get to 27 first. I also want to warn you guys about repeated references to alcohol abuse and depressive thoughts, please keep yourselves safe.

Lionel breathed a sigh of relief as his family filed out of the hall and into the sitting room at the front of the house with their order for tea slung over their shoulder like an old, tatty piece of luggage, an order which was readily picked up by the often exasperated woman who ran his kitchen, who sighed audibly as she trudged her way down the hall to relay their request. 

But it concerned him little, at the very least, they had largely refrained from being awkward, no argument had echoed off of the walls of Easton Hall and now, the hard bit was surely over. Cullen would look after Amelie now anyway, he could hold him to that.

But Claudette? Well, his parents were too self absorbed to even notice that all was not well in the Alessi household, his mother’s drawling praise over his brother in law still rung in his ears and threatened to give him a migraine. And Amelie was strong, of course she was, but she was shy, nervous, too afraid of rocking the boat to do what she had to. It’s why she let their mother say all those things about her, why she tolerated their father’s blatant disregard for her wellbeing, and it’s one of the reasons why he had spent every day since her release trying to let her know how much her cared.

Except, of course, he was rubbish at it, he always had been. He had cared about his wife, his children. But look where that had gotten him; his own failure to resist his indulgences had led them to ruin. But if there was one thing he could try to do right, he could protect those who were left to him, his sisters. He may have had to live with a marriage he had never wanted, one which had sucked the life out of him with layers upon layers of guilt and self hatred sapping at his mind every day since he had said those supposedly indomitable vows beneath the chestnut tree in his own garden, but perhaps he could spare them both the same pain. Perhaps.

 _Annabella. Jocelyn. Marinette._ The names echoed throughout his mind, whispered like a prayer spoken from poison coated lips as thoughts fell on the man himself, the man who had brought his sister to tears in the spare room of Amelie’s small terraced home and then wistfully into the arms of another while her once untainted mind filled with bitter, venomous guilt. And now here he was, swaggering into his home with a sickly smirk that told him everything he needed to know.

Claudette was just another name to add to his list.

A noise behind him almost made him jump out of his skin. It was the resolute slam of an old oak door which echoed along the ancient, polished stone, followed by the distinct march of determined feet against the marble floor. He felt himself tense like a deer in the piercing gaze of a ravenous wolf. But no, he couldn’t think like that.

Marcus Alessi was in _his_ house, _he_ was the master of Easton Hall.

“Marcus!” He cried, turning to face his brother-in-law as he sauntered down the hall with his hands thrust into the pockets of his trousers. He looked a state, really, with his shirt untucked and his dark, almost black, hair standing almost upright, and that told him everything he needed to know. “I wondered where you’d disappeared to.” He nodded to the door that his parents had waltzed through, where a muffled hint of a conversation filtered through the aging wood. “Everyone’s gone in for some tea but, well, I’m sure you’d prefer something a little stronger?” He raised the now empty glass that had been in his hand for much of the morning, throwing a smirk at his brother-in-law as he did so.

“You read my mind,” He laughed, passing through the door to their right at his behest. “But I do hope this isn’t some of...you know.” He turned to look at him with a wicked grin, his eyes lighting up as they glanced over his tall frame. “You’re not exactly my type.”

“Don’t worry, you’re not mine either,” He smiled politely, before turning to close the door behind him, drowning out the echoing calls of busy staff as they hurried around the bowels of his home. _I prefer my men to be far less slimy,_ he thought to himself, _and much better at dressing themselves_. He would have to tell _him_ that tonight...he’d find that amusing.

“I’ve always admired what you’ve done with the place,” Marcus mused as he roamed the small sitting room, his eyes glancing over the shelves of books he had forgotten to read and the old fireplace which had been stripped bare of the family photos that Jennifer had insisted on planting all over the house. Not that there ever that many to begin with.

“Well this was always my room,” He said with a sigh as he dropped himself into the old, worn armchair that faced the large, empty fireplace and indicated for Marcus to sit in the significantly less worn chair opposite. “No one came in here except me.”

“I think I need something like this,” Marcus watched him pour out a glass from the bottle of brandy he had gotten for his 30th birthday, which had surprisingly taken him this long to open. But then again, he had an entire cabinet filled with alcohol on the wall behind his chair which towered above the pair of them as they sat in conversation. “Sometimes a man needs to get away from his wife, you know? But I don’t need to tell you that.”

“No, but then you’ve only been married for a year,” He frowned as he leant back in his chair, pulling his feet up to rest on the small coffee table that sat in between them. “I was married for about nine. Is something wrong?” _Annabella. Jocelyn. Marinette. As if he had to ask…_

“Well, no,” He scoffed as he took a tentative sip from his glass, watching him from above the rim of his glass with beady, dark eyes. “But you were married, you know what it’s like. It’s constricting, you need to get out there and...escape.”

He was right, in a sense. Marriage had constricted him, he had been bound to a woman since his engagement at 19 when he was too young even to know that there was a gaping hole where his attraction for her should have been. And he had taken far too many opportunities to escape from the hold it had placed on him than he should have done in those last few years. But there was something different here, he noted, as he watched Marcus drink his brandy with a nonchalant air. He was so flippant about it, so at ease, with no concern whatsoever that after only a year, he had grown bored of his sister. Claudette, a young woman known for her kind nature and her pretty face. But it wasn’t enough for Marcus Alessi, the son of a drunkard who had gambled away their fortune.

But then he remembered the first time he had wanted to escape since the day of his wedding. He remembered the day Antony was born, when they told him he had a son. And he remembered the feeling of dread that had come with it, a bitter realisation that there was no turning back anymore, that this was it, his life. No escape. 

He didn’t remember much else from that night, the memories had trickled away while the alcohol burned down his throat, and all he remembered instead was waking up in this same armchair while the daylight sun pierced his eyes.

But this wasn’t the same. There was a reason he had felt that way. Marcus was just an insufferable, spoilt brat.

“But anyway,” Marcus said, clearing his throat as he dropped the empty glass down on the table in front of them. “It’s not so bad, now. She’s been spending time with her mother and sister more, gives me a bit of freedom.”

“Oh yes, like at New Year,” He said wistfully, pouring another glass for his brother-in-law before topping up his own. “Shame you couldn’t make it. What was it you were doing again?” He knew exactly what he had been doing, and her name was Annabella.

“I had an engagement I had to attend in Tantervale,” _Liar_. 

“Oh, right! The New Years event!” He cried, leaning forward ever so slightly so that he could scratch his chin pensively with his free hand. “But you know, I have a friend who went to that. He didn’t mention seeing you there…”

“It’s a huge event,” Marcus said quickly as he brushed aside his remarks with a wave of his hand. “People from all over the Free Marches attend.”

“Of course,” He mused, leaning back into the worn cushions of his armchair once again as he took a tentative sip out of his glass. “You know, I have a friend who I...got to know a while back, if you know what I mean.” He threw him a quick wink, before placing his glass down on the table with a gentle thud. “He spent his New Years at a Gentleman’s Club in Tantervale. I mean what a way to ring in the coming of First Day!” A bead of sweat had formed on Marcus’ brow as his eyes stared into the bottom of his glass. _Good, bastard_. “He’s bisexual, hence the choice of venue. And he said he was looking to spend the evening with a pretty girl called Annabella.” A dark cloud was hanging over their heads now, and the only sound to break through was the soft ticking of the clock on the mantelpiece. “But apparently, she was taken for most of the night, and disappeared off to some slimy nobleman’s home just before midnight.”

All was silent. Marcus’ face was the very picture of discomfort, his eyes fixated on the empty stone fireplace as his jaw clenched. “Does she know?”

“Yes,” He told him, his words maintaining an air of calm that was so distant from the wave of anger that had washed over him when he had first heard that news all those weeks ago. “But she doesn’t know about the others. Jocelyn, Marinette…Not yet anyway.” He paused to take another sip of his drink, coaxing his nerves with the sweet tasting liquid. “But I’ve been known to be a little bit of a talker. The only reason my father hasn’t disowned me yet is because I can always give him a good piece of valuable information.”

“You wouldn’t…” He scoffed, rolling his eyes as he drained the contents from his glass. 

“I would,” He said, leaning forward again to stare into his brother-in-law’s dark brown eyes that glared at him beneath furrowed brows. “As far as I’m concerned, you’re treating my sister like shit. She doesn’t deserve that, no one does. But especially not her.”

“You really think you’re better than me, don’t you?” Marcus asked with a scoff, his frown descending into a twisted smirk as he brought his gaze up to match his with an intensity he had yet to see from his brother-in-law. “It is a sorry day indeed when Lionel Trevelyan, the famed adulterer who ruined his family’s lives he couldn’t live with the guilt of it all.”

“That’s different-”

“No it isn’t,” He said, shaking his head with a soft chuckle as he brought himself forward, his head resting in his hand as he leant on the arm of the chair, watching him with the same intense stare that he had yet to break. “You and I are both the same. We’re both heirs of a title we don’t want, who have been bargained off for some girls land so that the children we never wanted can inherit more and the names of our piece-of-shit father’s can live on.” He smirked at him again with a laugh that was beginning to grate on him, before he climbed out of the chair so that, for the first time, he was being looked down upon by the smaller man. And he had a look which was nothing but terrifying, a snarl the likes he had never seen, not even on the war hound that followed Cullen everywhere. And he could see now why Claudette was so scared of him. 

“I’m not saying you have to be loyal, I don’t even think she expects that now,” He told him as he rose to his feet, allowing him to gain a few inches over him as he stood at full height. Marcus may be able to intimidate his younger sister, who barely even came up to Lionel’s chest even when she wore her favourite heels, but it didn’t work in the same way when the other person was a man who towered over you, even when he is lanky, underfed, and quite possibly drunk. “You just have to treat her with respect, be nice to her at the very least.”

He flinched then, his eyes falling to the floor only briefly as he chuckled defensively under his breath. But then his gaze returned to match his, dark brown eyes falling onto soft hazel as he spoke with a venomous tongue. “Is that what you think you did? The nice thing, the _kind_ thing?” He scoffed, drawing himself away from his gaze to march towards the door with his hands thrust in his pockets, turning at the last second to address him once more with words that cut through him like a hot knife through butter. “Why don’t you see how your kids feel when you make them leave again tomorrow. Then tell me you did the nice thing.”

He left the room, and where he had stood, there was a trail of blood, a remnant of the exact moment where he had cut out his heart in front of his eyes and tore it in two. He was left alone, in the silence of the room that was once his safe space, his escape. 

But he had been right, there was no escape.

The door had been left open, but he dared not go through it. Instead, he wandered over to the large window that looked out on the grounds of Easton Hall, passing his old, worn armchair and the now half empty bottle of brandy, which passed into his hands without him even realising as he made his way to the old, dusty glass panes. Through it, he could see his sons playing on the grass outside, smiling and laughing as they ran alongside the lumbering war hound and the nervous, skinny dog that Claudette had brought. And they looked happy, truly happy.

But then perhaps that was because he wasn't there, perhaps this was where he was meant to be, on the other side of the glass, watching from the distance as they carried on with their happy lives far away from him. He brought only poison with him, just like the poison that he carried in the glass, that seeped into his mind every time the cool liquid passed his lips.

“Lionel?” A voice called to him through the fog, and he turned slowly to greet it. Amelie poked her head around the door, watching him with her brows furrowed as she edged herself into the room. “Everything ok?”

How did he answer that? How could he ever answer that? When what he deemed to be ok was far from it? When ok meant that he had made it through the day. When ok meant a quick drink before bed so that sleep came to him, welcomed like an old friend.

He answered it like he always did, like he always had done.

“Yeah,” He said, throwing her a quick smile before draining the rest of the alcohol in his glass. “Everything's fine.”


	4. Tevinter Charmed

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A look behind the bedroom door to Amelie's guest room while her and Claudette were at the New Years ball.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter warning for explicit, m/m sexual content. Should be read after Chapters 18-21 for it to make sense, and for best results, after Chapter 30. Otherwise Chapter 30 severely loses its impact.

As he took a generous sip of the red wine that he had cradled in his hand for some time now, he escaped the cruel realities of life once again, just as he had done countless times before. The world was softer around the edges when alcohol surged through his veins.

No one here knew who he was. At least, it didn’t seem that way. No one noticed the man leaning lazily against the bar as he stared into his glass of wine. No one cared that, on the edge of the room staring into his almost empty glass stood the son of Bann Trevelyan, _that_ son, the one who…

He knew the stories. But no one else here seemed to. No one cared. 

Maybe it was the mask that hid his face, or maybe it was the fact that here, in Val Royeaux, no one cared enough about the Free Marches to follow what those miserable Marcher’s were doing. But then again, this was Orlais, perhaps it was more that his woes were nothing compared to the scandals that took place beneath the ancient spires that towered above Val Royeaux.

His glass was empty now, but it had done its job. The room was just a little bit more blurred when he put his glass down on the bar, and that was good enough for him.

“Hey!” A deep voice called to him as he placed the empty glass down on the bar in front of him with a gentle thud, causing him to turn ever so slightly and face a large man with one eye. No, not a man, a Qunari. “I’ve never seen you around here before.”

“That’s because I’m not from round here,” He said with a laugh as he stared up at the towering form in front of him. It was an odd feeling, being next to someone who was so much taller than him, it wasn’t as if he bumped into many people who could claim an inch or two over him. But to find someone that practically blocked the sun from his vision as he stood with his muscles on show and a comedically placed bow tie around his bare neck, well it must have been an all but impossible occurrence. 

“Where are you from then?” The Qunari leant to rest his large, exposed arms against the bar as his one good eye watched him intently with a fervour that his own hazel eyes couldn’t match. 

“The Free Marches,” He told him, dropping his gaze as he traded the interrogative glare for the disheartening sight of the empty glass in his hands. 

“You’ve come a long way then,” His voice was deep, but his tongue wrought words that were as smooth as the wine that had trickled down his throat with such ease not moments before. “You know, I could help to make that long journey worthwhile, if you were interested?”

“I…” Years ago, he would have said yes, he wouldn’t even have stopped to think about it. Life was simpler back then, when he was young and drunk and able to fight against the cruelties of the world rather than curl up and hide from it. Those were the days when a man approached Lionel Trevelyan and he said yes without so much as a glance in their direction, any attraction, or lack of, be damned. He was young, inexperienced, and he had made countless mistakes throughout the years. Perhaps that was why he was more careful now, or why he wanted something more. He had come here looking for exactly what this man, this Qunari, was offering him, a quick piece of fun without the chains of feeling or emotion or even base attraction. But now it was in front of him, it seemed far less appealing. He had spent nine years biting his tongue while he lived his days with a woman he wasn’t attracted to, and it had been painful. And now he had fought so hard to break free, why would he allow himself to turn back? “I’m sorry. I’m not interested.” He wasn’t, that was no lie. And even though he kicked himself internally for turning down the chance, he was also relieved. Why continue to lie? Why spend time with a man he wasn’t into? Wasn’t that the whole damn point of everything he had done?

“Oh well, worth a try,” The Qunari shrugged as he slunk away from the bar with his large hands thrust into the pockets of his trousers. “I’ll be over here if you change your mind.”

The Qunari slipped away, trying his hardest to slip into the crowd that had gathered on the dance floor while his oversized horns towered above the throng of people who parted eagerly as he approached. With a sigh, he turned back to stare at the empty glass in front of him before a gentle giggle pulled his attention elsewhere. Claudette was standing with a man on the far side of the bar, looking up at him with wide eyes filled with awe before letting out another girlish giggle. He couldn’t help but laugh to himself as his eyes fell back onto the glass in his hand. Claudette...so young, so inexperienced…

“Excuse me,” The sound of another male voice cut through his thoughts like a hot knife through butter, pulling his eyes away from the glass and towards the man who occupied the empty space left by the Qunari. “Do all the bartenders here speak Orlesian? I’d like to order a drink.”

His voice was the sarcastic drawl of a drunk nobleman, a voice he heard so often before at parties and fancy balls. But he had never expected to hear it from another patron at a glorified New Years piss up with added Chantry approval. With a sigh, he turned to the man in question, one who was remarkably smaller than the Qunari who had occupied that space not long before, with very well fitting black suit and a mask that was plated with gold. “What do you need to order?”

“Oh, I actually didn’t think I would get that far,” He admitted, his lips forming a smirk beneath the curve of his mask as he watched him with tentative, but warm, brown eyes. “What were you drinking? Wine?”

“A red,” He told him, his gaze falling back to the glass once again as an uncertain bartender hovered in front of them. “It was an Imperium, I think a 9:27 Qarinus, but I could be wrong.”

“Well, I hope your Orlesian is better than your Tevene,” The man scoffed, as dark eyes flickered out from beneath the gold plated mask to stare into his own for just a second before he turned back to the bar once again, his lips, which he now noticed were framed by an over the top moustache, forming a smirk once again, as if it were his trademark.

He said nothing, not to him anyway. He turned to the bartender who stood with his hands folded neatly in front of him as he watched the pair with an uncertain air. “Sorry to bother you,” He called to him with words that were a perfect imitation of an Orlesian gentleman’s, his accent a slight distortion of what it once was as years of neglect wore off and the strange, undulating accent passed his lips once again. “This gentleman here has clearly decided to take a jaunt in Orlais while claiming to not know the language and he would like a glass of whatever wine it was that I was drinking last.” He jumped into action dutifully as Lionel looked back at the man once again before launching into another round of near flawless Orlesian. “I’ll take one for myself, while I’m here.”

“That’s funny,” The man said with a laugh as the two glasses of wine were handed over and the bartender waited patiently for his payment. “If we had been in Tevinter, I would have pulled the same trick.”

“Well I might have done too,” He admitted, as he took a tentative sip from his glass. It was, surprisingly, the exact same wine he had enjoyed before, or at the very least, it tasted exactly the same. “Oldest trick in the book, isn’t it? To pretend you don’t know the language?”

“Is it? I hadn’t realised,” The man shrugged, turning to take a large sip from his glass of wine before turning to glance down at him again with those dark, beady eyes. “I know this goes against the whole point of this evening, but I can’t walk away from this without asking, I feel I owe you a thanks after all for your service. What was your name?”

He paused. It was on the tip of his tongue, ready to be spoken with very little effort at all. But something held him back, and whether it was the fact that, behind the mask, he felt a degree of safety that would have been forfeited by the tearing down of the defenses, or he simply revelled in the secrecy of this venture, he couldn’t tell. But he told him his name, or half of it, earning him the pleasure of hearing the name of this stranger pass over his lips. _Dorian_.

It was a name he would hear again and again that night, this time, passed through his own lips on a whispered breath. Names were a gift, given to an unwilling party in an expression of their parents will. But they were also to be shared, exchanged, like a wish or a prayer spoken into existence with persistency and assertion. They were masked, their very beings hidden behind a sheet of thin metal while they moved together in the pitch dark guest room of his sisters home, lit only by the faint glow of a street lamp which filtered in through the gap in the thin curtains. But they had their names, names which gave them the faintest hint of the man behind the mask.

But, eventually, even the masks came off. Fingers worked at the thin ties which had become hidden beneath a layer of red hair, while a thumb slowly hooked beneath the thing metal to peel the mask away from his face until he was left with nothing to hide him from the world, to hide him from Dorian. Arms wound around him, enclosing him, trapping him like a snake traps its prey. He wasn’t used to this, being at the mercy of the viper as it tightened its grip on his form. But he found himself unable to complain. Instead, he succumbed.

Pleasure was a curious thing, and sometimes, it was best to simply give in.

That was a lesson he was still learning.

\-----

Darkness gave way to light as noise erupted in the once empty house. The front door had been slammed shut with a loud bang, and all that Lionel could hear now were the voices of his sisters as they spoke frantically in the hallway below. He leapt off the bed in an instant, flicking on the switch on the wall by the door and drowning the room in a sea of bright yellow light.

“Oh, Maker,” Dorian groaned as he lay naked on the bed with a weary hand moving to cover his eyes. “Why is it so bright?”

“Get up, my sisters are home,” He said urgently as he threw his shirt over his shoulder and narrowly avoided falling into the wall. “Maker’s sake. What are they doing home so early?”

“I don’t know, but you can deal with it,” Dorian sighed as he wrapped himself in the duvet, pulling it over firmly over his head with a groan as he covered his still naked body. “I’ll leave in a minute.”

“You need to go now,” He told him, throwing him a stern look as he struggled to fasten the buttons on his shirt. “Claudette was meant to be staying in this room, and she is very squeamish about this kind of thing.”

All he got in response was another groan from beneath the covers so, with a sigh, he hurried over to the bedroom door and shot outside, closing the door firmly behind him just as Claudette emerged onto the landing. 

“Oh, you’re home already!” She cried as she turned towards him with her tired hazel eyes framed by a violent shade of red as they looked him up and down, taking in his hastily adorned clothes and the hair that was stuck on end. “Have you been sleeping?” She asked as he worked to flatten down the stubborn strands of red hair. “I don’t blame you, I’m so exhausted.”

She moved to shuffle past him, heading towards the door with her hand outstretched. “Wait!” He cried as he leapt in front of her, placing his hands on the handle behind his back. “Didn’t Amelie tell you that you’re staying with her tonight now?”

“What? No…” She looked up at him with a bemused expression, her eyes glancing over his shoulder before returning back to meet his gaze with a pout of her lips. “We agreed ages ago that we would share a bed because, no offense to Amelie, but none of us wanted to share with her so I don’t see why…”

“Well go and ask her,” He shrugged, his eyes travelling to towards the cold stone floor beneath his bare feet as he sought to avoid Claudette’s irritated stare. 

“Look, I don’t have time for this bullshit! It has been a long night and I’m-” There was a noise from inside the room that sounded like a bang, and every muscle in his body tensed as Claudette stared at him with a look of confusion, her brows furrowed as she worked to process her thoughts. “Oh Maker!” She cried, her look of confusion turning to one of shock as she turned to him with an interrogative stare. “Lionel Marius Trevelyan, be honest with me, is there someone else in that bedroom?”

He paused for a second, staring down at her with an apologetic gaze while the next words came out of his mouth at the volume of a whisper. “Yes there is.”

“Oh Maker!” Her hands clutched at her face as she stared up at him with her mouth agape. “But my stuff is in there, all of my nice clothes and, oh Maker, my _towels_ ...” She shuddered visibly, her hair cascading down in front of her face as she shook her head her head at him. “No, eww, I can’t sleep in that room. _Amelieeee!”_ Her shriek echoed proudly around the hall as she launched herself down the stairs with her heels thudding against the old stone floor. 

With a sigh, he slipped back into the room once again, closing the door gently behind him and shutting out the babble of conversation that was happening below. Dorian was still there on the bed, and he had still made absolutely no effort to get himself dressed, although in all honesty, he wasn’t complaining about that. But he was at least up, and he seemed much more alert than he had before.

“They should be going to bed soon, and then you can go,” He said with a sigh as he leant back against the wall behind him and closed his eyes while he wondered what it was like to have a normal life where the Maker wasn’t set out to make it as difficult as possible.

“Can I just ask?” Dorian began, forcing him to open his eyes and acknowledge the man who remained sat on his bed completely naked. “What did your sister say your name was?”

“What?” He asked him with a frown, but his answer was halted by a timid knock upon their bedroom door, which revealed itself to be owned by Claudette as he opened the door. “What do you want, Claudette?”

“I wanted to- ew…” She said as she raised a hand dramatically to cover her eyes as she tore them away from the tiny crack he had made as he opened the door. “I wanted to get my clothes, and I came to tell you that, if you were hoping on getting _him_ out of here without Amelie seeing, it isn’t going to happen.” Despite her apparent disgust, she turned to look at him again with eyes that twinkled with delight. “Amelie’s brought a man home! And, can I just say, he is so _so_ gorgeous.”

“A man?” He asked her, as he shuffled away from the door to reach for one of her many bags of clothes which Dorian had helpfully passed over to him. “What man? Do you know who he is?”

“What? No,” She said, shaking her head dismissively as she took the bag from him tentatively, clasping the handle with the tips of her fingers as she kept her gaze focused on the floor at her feet. “But anyway, just thought I’d warn you because, well, good luck explaining _that_ to her.” She raised her eyebrows as she glanced into the room for a brief second before tearing her eyes away quickly. “But I’m going to go to bed, it’s been a long night and I _really_ do not feel great.”

“Alright, goodnight Cee-Cee,” He turned to close the door once again trading the sight of his sister shuffling into the room at the far end of the hall for the man who was still naked on the bed in the centre of the room. Except, this time, he looked far less comfortable, his eyes narrowed as he stared down at the bed in front of him, before turning to look at him with a degree of apprehension.

“What was your other sister’s name again?” He asked him with a tentative air as he drew the covers closer to him. 

“Don’t worry about Amelie, she doesn’t care, she knew I was bringing someone here anyway so-”

“That’s not what I’m worried about,” He said slowly drawing himself further beneath the covers as he looked up at him in wide eyed horror. “I think I work with her at the university, she’s a-”

“History lecturer,” Lionel silenced him with his words. “ _Fuck!”_

Nothing was ever straightforward with him. Nothing. The world liked to play its jokes on certain people, and he had been at the receiving end of them for about 31 years now, and he was just starting to get sick of it.

The Maker had thrown a linguistically incompetent but rather attractive man in his path, and now, he had decided to play a joke. Blessed be the Maker...

“Well, looks like I’m not leaving this room for some time,” Dorian said with a sigh as he dragged himself off of the bed to wander over to the chest of drawers that sat proudly against the wall next to him. He remembered now, how they had brought that bottle of wine home from the bar and planted it firmly on top of the drawers, where it had been all but forgotten about until now. Dorian grasped it, pulling off the stopper with a firm grip as he looked over at Lionel with that sly smile that was half a smirk, one which was beginning to drive him a little mad, in a good way. “There’s about half of this bottle left. How about we do something productive with our time and finish this bottle?” He asked him, passing it over to him before pulling it back out of his reach and away from his tentative, outstretched fingers. “But you’ve got to take off your clothes first.”

He couldn’t help but laugh, there was no denying that this man exuded more charisma than any other man he had met. And yet, something in the back of his mind called out to him, niggled at him, threatened this brief moment of happiness with a voice that told him that he should never have done this, not now, not so soon after everything. Why should he seek happiness when everyone else was miserable because of him?

And then another voice, the voice which likely came from all the alcohol in his system, told him that this was _why_ he had done what he did, _this_ was the freedom he had been searching for, the freedom to say yes without the lying and the secrecy and the guilt. A man had been put in his path, a man who was just his type. Why not say yes? Who would even know?

Freedom was an exciting concept to someone who had never been free, and in pursuit of that freedom, his lips formed a smile, one which almost mirrored the smirk he had been thrown so many times tonight, and he began to undo the buttons of his shirt once again.

 


	5. Snow and Silver Moonlight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A Cullen x Amelie modern AU holiday fic set long past the main narrative but still in the same fun universe. So I thought I'd put it here anyway!

“Why is your skin always so warm?” Cullen asked her with a sigh as he clutched at her hand and burrowed his face into her palm while he sat beside her on the soft, king sized bed that they had laid claim to. “And so soft.”

“I don’t _feel_ warm,” Amelie told him as she shivered beneath his touch, her skin exposed to the bitter cold air as she lay all but naked against the firm mattress and the delicately soft covers. 

“It’s warmer here than it is in Orlais,” He reminded her with a chuckle, before reaching over to the pile of discarded clothes that sat proudly on the floor of their room and pulling out the thick, woolen jumper he had been wearing that day, throwing it over to her with a satisfied grin. “Although your brother’s house is, surprisingly, pretty cold.”

“That’s because it’s so old,” She told him as she threw the jumper over her head, pulling it down over her body where it drowned her in a thick bed of wool that fell past her hips. And it was true, the old walls were as cold to the touch as a blanket of freshly fallen snow. Leo wasn’t happy, his face hidden beneath his paws as he stubbornly refused to leave the safety of his favourite pink blanket. And she didn’t blame him. “Anyway, we can get into bed together and warm up.”

“But it’s almost midnight!” Cullen cried, looking over at with a degree of indignation which, despite the warmth provided by the woolen jumper, made her shiver once again. “Don’t you want to stay up and see in Satinalia?”

She laughed, but Cullen didn’t. Instead he pulled his once discarded shirt over his shoulders, shivering ever so slightly as the cold fabric touched his goose pimpled skin, before launching himself off of the bed and bounding towards the window. She watched him from the safety of the bed, with its warm covers and thick mattress, as he reached out to pull back the curtain with a tentative finger.

“Amy, look!” He cried, a grin stretching across his moonlit face as he stared out of the old, latticed window with wide eyes filled to the brim with excitement. “It’s snowing!” He turned back to her with his face bright with glee, but his face soon fell. “Amelie, stop being miserable and come over here.”

“I’m _not_ being miserable,” She insisted, rolling her eyes as she reluctantly swung her legs out from under the covers and pressed her feet against the cold wooden floor. “Maker, this house is so cold.”

“Your house used to be colder,” He reminded her as she hurried over to him with her limbs shaking as she fought off the bitter cold that was assaulting her exposed skin. But, of course, he wrapped his arm around her, pulling her into his chest as he cradled her shivering form. “Maker, your skin is so warm still.”

“It doesn’t _feel_ warm,” She sulked as she leant against his chest while her eyes drifted towards the window, where snow was now falling in large chunks of glistening white which shone in the pale light of the moons and twinkled against the dim light that filtered out of the window from their room. “But it is pretty.”

“Told you,” He chuckled, his hand rubbing against the exposed skin of her arm as he fought to suppress the tide of goose pimples that were beginning to spread over her body. “And it’s all going to look even more beautiful tomorrow.”

“You mean, today?” She asked him as she noted the distant chime of an old clock which echoed throughout the silent, empty halls of her brother’s home. She turned in Cullen’s arms and stared up at him with the widest of grins as she wound her arms around his torso, revelling in the warmth that his arms provided as they enclosed her shivering form. “Happy Satinalia, Cullen!”

He looked down at her with his brows furrowed before a quick, fleeting glance at the watch on his wrist. “Huh, you’re right,” 

“Well of course I am!” She laughed up at him with her eyes trailing towards the smile that was appearing on his scarred lips as she stood in the warmth that emanated from his presence. “Didn’t you hear the chimes?”

“I think I was just a little distracted by the view,” His smile turned into a smirk as he appeared to revel in the image before him, his honey coloured eyes drinking in every aspect of her form as they roamed every inch of her.

“Don’t be so cheesy,” She gave the faintest of laughs as a tide of red flooded towards her freckled cheeks, but her bashfulness didn’t take long to dissipate.

“I was actually talking about the snow,” Cullen said, his head peering out from behind her shoulder as he turned his attention to the window behind her. “Wow, it’s snowing so hard now!”

“ _Really?_ ” She cried as she whirled around to follow his gaze, looking through the aged glass to witness the large, white flakes that were now falling with such speed that the night sky was no longer visible, and thick piles of white snow were beginning to form on the lattices of the window. She slumped her shoulders with a huff. It was beautiful, of course, but she couldn’t help but maintain her frown.

“I’m just kidding!” He assured her as she felt his arms encompass her once again, pulling her into his hold as he rested his chin against her shoulder. “You know I think you’re the most beautiful person in the world.” She didn’t answer, she just let out a huff that was drowned out once again by a laugh from Cullen that reverberated through her whole body as he held her tight. “Will it cheer you up if I give you your present now?”

“You can’t do that!” She threw her head back in alarm and turned to look into the honey coloured eyes that shone at her as he smiling face rested on the crook of her neck. 

“Why not?” He asked her with his brows furrowed, his arms releasing her from their hold as he backed away towards the pile of luggage in the far corner of the overly large room. “It is Satinalia now.”

“Yeah but…” She began, her words falling into a heavy sigh as she turned to watch Cullen cross the room towards her with a small, neatly wrapped present in hand. It wasn’t like Cullen to wrap so neatly, with a tiny bow securing the patterned paper and a small, golden tag falling off the side. It was all a bit suspicious, and there was a part of her that suspected some involvement from her sister. But it did make her curious. “Alright, fine!”

He beamed at her in delight as she slowly pulled apart the paper, holding back her urge to rip apart the neatly wrapped package as excitement began to rise up within her, until the paper could be discarded, and a tiny box sat in her hands which hid beneath the wool of Cullen’s jumper.

“Open it, then!” He said as he all but bounced up and down on the spot in front of her, following her fingers with eager, shining eyes as she opened the box in her hands to reveal a dazzling flash of silver. She wasn’t one to wear a lot of jewelry, but this really was beautiful. As she plucked the simple, yet delicately elegant necklace from the box, the chain fell through her fingers in a cascade as moonlight shone off of the tiny links of silver and danced against the contours of the gleaming stone that sat at its apex.

“Cullen…” She began, but he soon interrupted her with a burst of delight.

“Your sister helped!” He declared eagerly as he shuffled closer to her with his eyes drawn to the silver in her hand like a moth is drawn to the flame of a candle. “Do you like it?”

“Of course I do!” She cried, looking up at him with a beaming smile as she ran her fingers over the smooth metal. “Did you want yours now, too?”

“No, don’t worry about that,” He shook his head at her before reaching out to take the small necklace from her fingers. “I just wanted to see how it looked on you.”

“Are you sure?” She asked him, but he was already stood behind her, passing the threads of silver beneath her tangled strands of red hair as she felt his cold fingers brush against the skin of her neck.

“Of course I am,” He told her with gentle tones, before his the cold touch of his fingers left her exposed neck and his voice became more authoritative. “Turn around.”

She did as he said, and she was met with the smiling face of a man who looked far too pleased with himself. His golden eyes continued to shine in the light of the two moons even as the veil of snow that covered their ancient window only grew thicker, and his smile only grew larger as he watched her with a pride that only continued to swell. 

“You look lovely,” He said after some time, his words falling from his mouth at a volume no larger than a whisper as he admired his handiwork, a finger coming up to brush the silver chain with its tiny, elegantly cut stone that sat against the dark fabric of his woolen jumper with a gleaming pride. “Do you like it?”

“I love it,” She admitted as a wave of red crashed against the soft skin of her cheeks and burnt her freckle covered skin. “Thank you, Cullen.”

“My pleasure,” He smiled down at her again, but this time, he pulled her closer, drawing her into his arms once again. “Happy Satinalia, Amy.”

“Happy Satinalia, Cullen.” She grinned up at him as the increasingly thick flakes of snow danced in shadows across his moonlit face and shining golden eyes cut through the darkness to warm every ounce of her shivering body. In his arms, she was warm, she was safe, she was at peace.

Snow continued to fall on the once green fields that bordered her brother’s home for miles upon miles, leaving Easton Hall to sit proudly in an unending sea of green. But on the other side of the glass, behind a complicated lattice of ancient ironwork, the two of them spent the opening hours of Satinalia revelling in one another’s warmth. Until, eventually, the old clock in the hall chimed once again, and no one was left awake to hear it.


	6. A Gift of the Heart

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Another holiday fic, this time from the POV of Claudette as she returns from the First Day Ball and reflects on what happened there.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This takes place after chapters 18-21 so it is recommended that you read those first!

Claudette’s favourite thing about Satinalia was giving out presents. She loved the thrill of perusing through shops to find the perfect gift, the satisfying flash of her pen against paper as another name got scratched off of her list, the beaming smile that erupted on her face as she tied the last ribbon around the final present. And, most of all, she loved to see the smiles on the faces of those who were destined to receive them. Her parents with their polite and noble airs, her nephews with their toothless grins, her brother and sister who so rarely broke out into smiles that seeing the faintest hint of happiness from even one of them made her heart swell with joy. 

But receiving presents? That wasn’t quite as exciting for Claudette.

She was a woman who wanted for nothing. She had the perfect life, in theory, enriched by a bottomless credit card and propensity to charm her way into the hearts of those who mattered. The gifts were endless, some from family, some from friends, some from companies desperate for her to use their goods. 

But they never excited her. How could they? There was no gift out there that could provide her with something she didn’t already have. Because she was the woman who had everything.

And so Satinalia came and went. She gave out her presents, and she received them. And when it was finally over, life continued on.

Until First Day beckoned: a Satinalia present that had arrived late, it seemed, wrapped in a the heady atmosphere of a fancy ball and tied together with a ribbon made from the dazzling spectacle of a masked crowd. But wrapped beneath these layers of beauty was the present itself. A man caught her eye and took her hand in his, and they danced and danced until the bells tolled and First Day was upon them.

And then, they kissed, and they kissed, long into First Day.

But that wasn’t the only gift she had received that night. No, a small piece of paper had been passed into her hand as her and her sister made to flee the ball. It was unassuming, a rough tear from a napkin which contained only a quick scribble from a worn out biro. But she had kept hold of it, kept it safe, hidden from the beady eyes of her husband as she slipped it beneath the cover of her phone, only to be brought out in the dead of night when all the household were asleep save for her. 

Only then, when all was quiet beneath the reign of the ghostly spectres of the two moons, did she unwrap her present. 

Her heart began to flutter as her fingers folded back the torn scrap of paper, revealing the hastily scrawled numbers to her dry, tired eyes. But she couldn’t give in, not even as a yawn rose up from her chest and threatened to burst free. She shook her head to dispel all thoughts of sleep and, instead, she turned to her phone and began to key in the numbers until all of them stood proudly in a row in the middle of her screen.

The loud hoot of an owl on the other side of the old glass window made her jump out of her skin, the phone almost falling out of her hand as she scrambled to gather her composure. And then she laughed to herself, a faint laugh, of course. How could the cry of an innocent owl scare her so? _Why_ had it scared her so?

Because what she was doing was wrong, and she knew it.

It was a gift she should never have received, one which she should have refused, returned. Every ounce of morality within her screamed that this was wrong. She was a married woman, her husband was asleep in a room just down the hall snoring into the quiet of the night with a rumble that could be heard even from where she sat in the window of her room, looking out onto the night sky filled with stars. 

And then there were the warnings from her brother, from a man who talked with the distinctive slur of a raging hangover but nonetheless, from a place of experience.

“It won’t make you happy, it will only make you feel worse.”

And he was probably right.

She sighed, and the phone fell into her lap with the scrap of paper floating down to rest beside it; the best present she had ever received discarded, just like any other. Because she was the girl who had everything, a home, a husband, the faintest murmur of an unborn child. 

But she had never asked for those things. Not the fancy home or the titled husband or the responsibility of birthing his heir. She was the luckiest woman in the world, but it was a luck she could do without.

But she _had_ asked Rylen for his number, with a whisper in his ear as the night drew to a close and the hours began to pass on the morning of First Day. Like a First Day wish, uttered in secret beneath the safety of a gilded mask.

And her wish had come true. So was she really going to throw it all away?

No.

She grabbed the phone and the scrap of paper with it, and with thumbs that moved as fast as the dogs her husband loved to race, she keyed in the number and pressed the green circle at the bottom of the screen.

He answered. She smiled. And she didn’t stop smiling until long after the call had ended, and she had returned to her bed and hid her beaming face beneath the covers.

Now she knew how it felt to receive one of those presents, the ones wrapped to perfection, hiding the item that that person desired above all others, the one which lit up their face in a thousands dazzling colours as they peeled off the paper and held their hearts desire in their hand.

And she was happy.

 


	7. When the Snow Fell

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> On the night before Satinalia, twenty-two years ago, Amelie Trevelyan wished for snow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For the Satinalia prompt of "memories" I went way waaayyyyy back to when Amelie was seven years old and before she was sent to the Circle. Prepare for some bittersweet winter memories and very young Trevelyans.

It was snowing when the clock struck twelve, but only in Amelie’s dreams. In those dreams, she walked the Fade with a spring in her step and a smile upon her face, and it looked just like her home. But she knew it was the Fade, perhaps by instinct, perhaps by the sheer number of times her dreams had taken her there as of late. 

It snowed here, or at least it did on this night. Because one thing she had learnt was that this place responded to her greatest wishes. And her wish on this night, had been for snow.

So she danced in it, and it was beautiful, with flakes of snow falling in her long strands of red hair or drifting towards the strange rocky ground beneath her slippered feet. Until, at least, she was forced to return to the waking world, because that always seemed to happen. Dreams never lasted.

“Amy! Amy! AMY!” The snow stopped falling, and everything around her crumbled away, until all she was left with was the darkness of her bedroom, a darkness that was fringed with the warm glow of her bedside lamp, while her brother stood above her with his hand pushing at her shoulder. “Wake UP!”

“What?” She snapped, looking up into the soft hazel eyes of her brother from behind a veil of flaming red hair. 

“You said we would stay up together!” Lionel sighed heavily as he flopped himself down on the bed next to her, running a hand through the pile of red hair that sat lazily on top of his head. “And then I come in here and you’re asleep!”

“Is it midnight already?” She asked him as she rubbed at her weary eyes, sitting herself up and throwing her long red hair behind her shoulders. “Did I miss it?”

“Yes!” He rolled his eyes at her and folded his arms across his chest as he stared down at her with contempt. “It’s ok, you haven’t missed anything. It’s not snowing.”

“It isn’t?” She asked, pouting her lips as she watched her brother shake his head with a glum expression. “I _really_ wanted it to snow on Satinalia this year.”

“Me too,” He sighed, drawing his feet up onto the bed and crossing his legs in front of him so that he could rest his weary head in the palm of his hand. “It was so much fun last year.”

“And it’s Claudette’s first Satinalia!” She cried with newfound excitement as the throes of sleep slipped from her shoulders and any sense of fatigue washed away from her. “She’s never seen snow before!”

“She’s only one, Amy,” He reminded her with another roll of his eyes. “She won’t even understand.”

“Doesn’t mean she should miss out!” She said defiantly, before switching conversation with a quick huff and a flick of her hair. “Anyway, it was snowing in my dreams before you woke me up.”

“You shouldn’t have been asleep!” He reminded her with a laugh as he prodded her exposed arm playfully. 

“I can’t help it!” She laughed with him and returned his playful prod with one of her own as she tapped the skinny arm that was hidden beneath a thick, woolen dressing gown before she changed the conversation with a dramatic sigh. “Maker, I wish the real world was like a dream.”

“What are you talking about?” He scoffed with a roll of his hazel green eyes.

“I'm _talking_ about how, if this was a dream, I could just close my eyes-” She did so then, slamming her eyes shut for dramatic effect as she unknowingly clenched her fists beneath the blankets of her bed. “And wish for snow.”

She heard him snicker, but her eyes stayed shut as flakes of snow danced around the vast chasm of her wandering mind.

Her eyes were shut so tightly, her mind was wandering so far, that she didn't even notice that snow was now falling in the real world.

“Amelie,” Hearing her full name uttered on her brothers lips brought her back to Thedas with a jolt, her eyes flying open as she watched him sit in front of her with flakes of white snow in his bushels of bright red hair. “What did you do?”

Snow continued to fall in elegant swirls around them, falling, she noticed, from nothing. Flakes appeared above their heads, and disappeared as they landed in their red hair.

It was just like magic.

“It's just like my dreams,” She whispered as she watched a flake dance above her head before drifting down towards the bed in front of her. “You know what that means, Leo-”

“It means they will take you away,” He told her with a face that had fallen beneath the blanket of snow that fell upon his hair, his skin ashen and white in the pale moonlight that shone through the old latticed windows. “You just did magic, Amelie. Remember when Jeanette told us about mages?”

“I’m not-”

“But what if you are?” He urged, his eyes wide as he looked her up in down in wonder, before concern washed over his already pale face once again. “What if the Templars take you?”

They sat in silence for a second, but as they sat there, she could have sworn that the turning of the gears in her mind could be heard for miles. She thought, and she thought, and while she did, the snow stopped falling.

Maybe this was just a dream? Maybe he _hadn’t_ woke her up.

Except he had. A quick pinch of the skin of her palm told her as much. And her palms were cold too, as cold as the snow that had only recently fallen on her skin and woven itself into her long locks of red hair. The snow that _she_ had made.

“Then we won’t tell anyone!” She cried as she grabbed her brother’s hand in desperation, forcing him to turn his frightened gaze towards her, hazel eyes piercing into vivid green. “We’ve kept secrets before, haven’t we! Remember last year when we found our Satinalia presents?”

“I don’t like keeping secrets,” He mumbled, turning away from her again as his gaze fell into his lap. 

“Well, you _have_ to,” She said with a resolute air, flicking her long veil of hair behind her shoulder once again. “Now come on, let’s go to sleep. I don’t want to fall asleep at Satinalia lunch again. Father wasn’t very happy about that.”

“No, I remember,” He said with the ghost of a laugh before his shoulders slumped once again, his bottom lip sticking out in an undignified pout. “I’ll leave you to sleep.”

“No, come on, stay in here!” She cried, grabbing his hand once again just as he moved to slide off of the plush, ornate covers which adorned her oversized bed. “I know you want to!”

“Father won’t like it,” He reminded her with quiet, uncertain words. But she saw the hint of a smile creep across his wary face, and all she could do was giggle.

“Who _cares?”_ She said with a laugh as she dragged his arm back towards the bed until, eventually, he gave in, his skinny frame all but disappearing beneath the thick covers of her bed. “Come on, let’s go to sleep. It is Satinalia tomorrow, after all.”

“Do you think we will have lots of presents?” He whispered into the night as she reached over to turn off the lamp which sat proudly on her bedside table. 

“I’m sure we will,” She sighed as darkness enveloped her room and her freckled face dove into the pile of feather down pillows. “Now go to sleep.”

“Alright, goodnight, Amy,” She heard him say behind her as she wrapped herself in a cocoon of feather down and cotton. 

She wanted to reply, to say goodnight to her brother, as she should have done. But sleep washed over her far too quickly, welcoming her like an old friend. And, before she knew it, she was in the Fade once again, walking along the now familiar landscape with footsteps that echoed against stone floors that she knew, now, were not her own.

In the Fade, she wished for snow, and snow came. 


	8. Business to Attend

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dorian wanted to talk to Amelie but, instead, it's her older brother who shows up at his desk in the archives.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lionel POV of Chapter 40 of the main story so I would read CH40 first if you haven't already otherwise you'll probably find yourself going "huh, how did they get here"
> 
> Also chapter warnings for sexual innuendo throughout and sexual references towards the end

Val Royeaux University was a strange place for Lionel Trevelyan to wander through. It was a place he both recognised, and did not, a place that held vague memories of a dream that never came to pass. How it made him feel? He wasn’t sure.

But through the murky haze of emotions repressed by years of neglect and substance abuse, there were fragments of memories that guided him through the throng students who mingled and bustled around the campus towards the library. But then, how could he not remember the towering spires of the university library? It hadn’t changed one bit since he had last walked towards it 14 years ago with his eyes as wide as the reach of his ambition, even as the world around it had been shaken to its core. It was almost admirable to him.

His thoughts were interrupted just as he were about to pass through the painfully slow revolving doors, turning his attention away from his goal and towards a young woman who was racing towards him with her dark hair flying behind her and a wad of papers clutched to her chest.

“Mr Trevelyan!” The lady called to him as she approached with her long dark hair billowing behind her as she fought against the bitter onslaught of wind that had plagued the city on this otherwise pleasant day. He was hesitant to respond, watching her instead with his eyes narrowed as she called his name once again. “Mr Trevelyan!” Again, he didn’t respond, he only watched. Because, besides from the fact that it had been a long time since a stranger had called him anything but Lord Trevelyan, he also had absolutely no idea who this woman was. That is, until she was practically standing in front of him, and he looked down upon her determined face which brought back vague memories of the night of New Year. 

“You’re...Amelie’s friend?” He asked as he tried his best to claw his way through the fog in his mind to clear a path to his memories of New Year. But there was only one thing that he could remember clearly from that night, and it did not involve this lady.

“Yes, we met briefly at the New Year Ball but, well, I’m not sure I would class that as a...proper introduction,” She said with a laugh as she flung her locks of windswept hair behind her shoulder. “And, well, we met before that too but, it was a long time ago, you probably wouldn’t remember. Anyway, I’m Josephine Montilyet, I work... _worked_...with your sister here.”

“Montilyet?” Realisation dawned upon him as the distant memories of a long forgotten past rose to the surface, just as a tide of red rose to cover the skin of his cheeks. “Makers sake, I should have known that that Wicked Grace game would come back to haunt me one day.”

“Yes well, that’s exactly why I didn’t mention it on First Day. I didn’t want to embarass you in front of Amelie.” She laughed loudly with her hand covering her mouth as if it were who deserved to be ashamed. But then her laughter abated, and it was replaced by the ghost of a smile and a tone that was far more calm and collected than what had come before. “Well, don’t let me interrupt you for too long but, I just wanted to ask, how is Amelie?”

“Oh, well…” He said with a faint scoff as he resisted the urge to tell her exactly how his sister had taken her abrupt departure from the job that she had fought so hard to get. “Let’s just say there’s a reason she didn’t want to return these books herself.”

“Ah, I see,” Josephine nodded slightly as her gaze dropped towards the ground below her feet, before she brought those brown eyes up to meet his once again with her lips forming a smile that lit up her sweet face once again. “Well, do you know where you’re going with those? They look like they came from the archive so I don’t mind–“

“No, it’s fine,” He said quickly, throwing her an encouraging smile as he began to back away towards the doors of the library. “Just through here, right?”

“Yeah! Just...watch out for the archivist. He’s been even more prickly than usual since your sister left,” She called to him as he continued to back away, throwing her a quick smile and a thank you before he turned from her and faced the chaos of the library, with its seemingly endless rows of shelves filled to the brim with books both new and old and the swarms of students whispering frantically to each other from behind their towering piles of books and notes.

And eventually, after a few wrong turns and only one instance of translating one of the signs wrong, he found the archives.

The archivist was hardly visible from behind his desk, where he reclined in his chair with his feet up on the old desk and a book in his hand, which expertly covered his face and blocked his view from all those who would seek to disturb him. 

“No one has contacted me about archive access today so, whoever you are, tell me what you want and make it quick,” His words were more a frustrated sigh than an articulated speech, as he sunk further into the chair and moved the book closer to his face.

“That’s not what you told me last time,” He told him with a smile as he approached the desk and leant against the old wood with his eyes fixed on the man who hid behind the yellowing pages of an old book. “I seem to remember it being _you_ who was telling _me_ what you wanted. And it certainly wasn’t quick, either.”

Dorian became still, his body as tense as a bowstring for some seconds before he slowly lowered the book from his face, and the worn, yellowed book became replaced by those familiar beady eyes, the ones that he would admit he had begun to miss in their absence.

“What are you doing here?” He asked in a curt tone, but he couldn’t help but notice the twitch at the corner of his mouth that stubbornly refused to turn into a full blown smile.

“I heard you wanted to have a chat with my sister,” He said as he folded his arms across his chest and looked down at him with a satisfied smirk.

“Your _sister_ , yes,” He said with a roll of his eyes as he reluctantly threw the book down on the desk in front of him and lowered his feet to the ground. “I didn’t even know you were in Val Royeaux, otherwise I might have asked her if I could visit sooner.”

“Well, I only got here yesterday, and I’m not here for long, so you chose to pester my sister at the right time,” He laughed with a brief glance at the silver watch on his wrist, a 30th birthday present that cost more than he would ever bother to spend on such a trifle accessory. “What did you need her for, anyway? She said you wanted to talk about something and, well, I guess I’ll just have to suffice.”

“Hmm, well, alright then,” He sighed as he rose rather reluctantly from his chair and turned towards the closed door behind him, pulling a bunch of keys out of his trouser pocket and shoving them into an old, worn lock until the door gave way and he all but threw it open. “Come through here and we can talk.”

“You know, I am here strictly on business,” He reminded him as he was lead past rows and rows of old, dusty books and aging piles of papers he would have no hope of recognising, and into a dimly lit corner that was about as far away from prying eyes as possible.

“Yes, but I’m sure I could change your mind on that if I so wished,” Dorian said as he came to a stop at the far end of the final row of books, turning to him with his arms folded across his chest and a smirk across his face. 

“Oh I’m sure you could,” He said with a smile, although the Maker only knew that it wouldn’t have taken much effort for him to have done so. But with a sharp breath, he turned his gaze towards the shelf of aging books that towered above his head, and he returned to the task at hand. Albeit, rather begrudgingly. “Now what was it you wanted with Amelie? I’m sure you weren’t planning on leading her into a dark corner of the library.”

“No, that’s a privilege reserved just for you,” He was told with a wicked grin as he leant against the wall behind him and fidgeted with the bunch of keys in his hand, and Lionel couldn’t help but watch his thumb pass repetitively over the old, discoloured metal, until he spoke again, and his gaze was drawn back to those sincere, beady eyes. “All I was going to ask was whether I could stay in her spare room.”

“Why what’s wrong with your place?” He asked with his eyes narrowed in confusion as he continued to watch him play with the keys in his hands, before they were returned to the pockets on his trousers and his arms folded across his chest once again.

“There’s nothing _wrong_ with it. Well, besides how small it is, and the persistent damp problem,” He rolled his eyes at him, and Lionel couldn't help but feel as if he had just joined a conversation halfway through. But apparently, his confused expression was picked up upon. “It’s been hell here since Amelie left. There’s Templar’s crawling around the place, asking questions. Everyone’s looking at me like I just performed a blood magic ritual in the middle of the campus.”

“Right but why would you want to stay in my sister’s house?” He asked as his confusion refused to abate. “I mean, not being funny, it’s a nice enough house, but it’s _tiny_. And, on top of that, the walls are thin and you can hear _everything_ her and Cullen are doing. I mean, I remember them being loud when they came to stay, but my place is big enough that that wasn’t quite so much of an issue. I had to tell my kids it was the dog chasing his tail.”

“That’s...certainly interesting. But, regardless... ” Dorian continued with his eyebrows raised in disbelief. “I need to get back to Tevinter and, if I stay at mine, I’ll have spent all my money on rent by the time I finally have the balls to get back in touch with my father again, and then, well, I wouldn’t be able to go. So I may have to endure their...er...noises for the time being.”

“He wouldn’t send you any beforehand, then?” He suggested, albeit he had a suspicion it would be a futile thought.

“I doubt it!” He scoffed, and Lionel shook his head in knowing disbelief. “Not that I particularly want to go crying to the old man for money after I so triumphantly escaped his clutches but, well, needs must.”

“I can give you money,” He told him with a shrug, but all he got was a scoff in return. “What? I give everyone else enough. I’m pretty friendly with the people at the airline so I could get a ticket for you tomorrow if you wanted.”

“But, even so,” He said as he averted his gaze to watch the toe of his boot scuff against the floor beneath his feet. “I don’t want to go back to Tevinter now. I mean, I do. I just...need to psyche myself up for it first.”

“Understandable,” He nodded as he scanned the spines of the books above their heads before he turned to look at Dorian once again with a smile on his face. “Then don’t go to Tevinter. I’ll get you a flight to Ostwick.”

“What, stay with you?” He let out the faintest of laughs, as if his words had been a joke, a trick. But Lionel wasn’t joking.

“No, you can stay in a fucking hotel,” He rolled his eyes and elicited a heavy sigh that evolved into an exasperated laugh. “Yes, with me. It’s not like I haven’t got the room and, as soon as you get sick of me or decide you want to go to Tevinter, whichever one comes first I guess, you’re already halfway there, you can just leave.”

“Isn’t that just going to cause you problems, though?” He asked, and it was hard not to catch the concern in his narrowed eyes. “And there are still Templar’s in Ostwick…”

“Well, you won’t have to worry about the Templar’s. I’ll just make sure to increase the amount of money the estate gives the Circle this year,” He said, brushing off Dorian’s worries with a half hearted shrug. Although, he would admit, these were the worries he was sharing too, now that his ill thought out words had been uttered. It wasn’t the Templar’s who worried him, of course, it was everyone else. More specifically, it was his parents. 

“And your family?” Dorian asked him, voicing the concerns which were beginning to plague his mind. He began to second guess everything he had done that day, coming here, seeing him, falling into this trap that he had set for himself. But, no, he was being ridiculous. If a 31 year old man couldn’t help out a person in need, a person he cared about, then, well, life really was as shit as he always thought it had been.

“It will be fine,” He said, finally. And as he said those words, he began to think it too, began to believe it. “If I end up having to tell them then, well, it can be done. My mother is ignorant, but she’s always been very protective of me, so I wouldn’t worry about her, she may even keep my father in check. And with _him_ , he will be off on his annual hunting trip next month and will be gone for about three weeks, so that gives you plenty of time to get sick of the sight of me and piss off back to Tevinter. ”

“Well I’m not sure if I could get sick of the sight of you,” Dorian said as the concern finally lifted from his face, the tension between his eyes easing as he looked up at him with a satisfied smirk. “I might get sick of everything else, though.”

“Understandable. Many people do, I think,” He laughed as the dark cloud that had hovered above their heads seemed to lift, and the weight upon his shoulders eased. Because it always came down to this, the point where it all turned out OK. Where, despite the threat of what may come to pass, they could smile, they could laugh, they could be themselves.

Perhaps that why he found Dorian’s presence so endearing, that and his irritatingly charming demeanour.

“Anyway...” He said with a shake of his head as he expelled the thoughts from his mind in a bid to stem the tide of red that he could feel spreading across his cheeks. “I can probably get you a plane ticket for this weekend. I have to take my sister to the airport then anyway so I can get you at the same time.”

“Right, OK. So...I guess I’ll see you in Ostwick?” He said as he leant against the wall behind him with his hands in his pockets and a smile on his face that distorted his ridiculous moustache. 

“I guess you will,” He told him, mirroring his smile as best he could, but giving it his own, slightly deflated air. Because as soon as that smile faded, he turned to make his exit, to leave the archive and return to his sister, his family, to the cruel reality of the world outside this corner of the archive. 

But something held him back. 

It was the faintest sensation of another hand touching his, clutching at his fingers with a grip that was soft as velveteen, but which tugged at his fragile heartstrings and stopped him in his tracks.

“Where are you going?” Dorian called, and he turned at the sound of his voice to catch him staring up at him with a wicked grin and narrowed, scheming eyes. “We’ve concluded our business, have we not?” He was pulling him closer now, luring him in with his eyes locked and his mouth twisted into a smile while his grip on his hand only grew tighter

_Fucking hell_. “I need to get back and, besides, what if someone were to come in?” He protested, but his words fell on flat ears, largely because he wanted them to, because they were more of a throwaway whisper than a sincere protestation.

“I locked the door behind us, and, anyway…” He told him as he drew him even closer, his hand migrating away from his and towards his waist, his lips reaching up to hover so close to his own that there was hardly a hair breadth between them, so that his whisper sounded almost as loud as a fierce cry across an endless chasm. “What did I say earlier? Tell me what you want, and make it quick.” 

And so he did.


	9. In Another World

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Claudette enters the coffee shop where she had arranged to meet with Rylen, prepared to tell him that she see's no future for the two of them. Can he change her mind? Or is the end for the pair who met on the coming of First Day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok first of all, chapter warning for mentions of abusive relationships throughout
> 
> Secondly, Claudette has some really warped and negative opinions of herself in this chapter (as well as some family members showing through too) and just before anyone gets upset, this is not what I think of her at all or what I think is the right way to think about this kind of situation, it's just what is going through her mind right now after years of conditioning. It hasn't really been seen before because we haven't explored her POV properly. But this isn't at all a reversal in character, just a look at what her noble upbringing has led her to believe about herself.
> 
> [continued at the end]

The coffee shop was far too busy and far too loud for Claudette's liking. But it would do. Maybe it was better this way, anyway, she couldn't face doing what she had to do in a quiet room where the eyes of the other patrons would wander over at the sound of raised voices.

No, it was better this way.

She found a seat by the window, which gave her a view of the busy street, where she could just about see Amelie and Cullen sitting on a bench on the other side of the street through the misted, rain speckled glass. And she sat, and she waited for some time. She had arrived just a little bit early but, well, she could always order a tea. That might calm her nerves anyhow, quell the shaking in her hands, the quiver in her lip. 

No one came over to her, even after she had sat there for some time, waiting. But then this was a far cry from her favourite tea room in Ostwick, the one her mother liked to take her to for afternoon tea. So, with a sigh, she went to the small counter at the far side of the shop, and she ordered her tea, which they did at least bring over to her, even if she did then discover that they had used a bag rather than loose tea. 

But she drank it anyway. Well, what else could she have done? She needed something to keep her busy, something to wrap her shaking hands around while she waited, and waited, with her eyes fixed on the fog covered window, watching the world carry on with its business, carrying on with what seemed like little care, little worry. 

“Claudette?” She heard the call of her name even above the roaring din that reverberated around the busy coffee shop, and that was the moment her heart broke in two. She had prepared for this, steeled herself. Even as she told her siblings what she was about to do, even when they gave her concerned looks marred by disapproval, she had been resolute, strong. She remembered how Jennifer had been, staring up into the fearsome eyes of the man who left Claudette quaking beneath his piercing gaze. And she was as strong as she was, standing tall, firm, proud. 

And with that one word, she had almost lost it all. 

She rose from the seat she had chosen for herself, the one by the fogged up window with the view of the busy street ahead, and she turned, her back straight, chin forward, eyes firm in their gaze, just as her mother had taught her, just as the women at her old girls school had drilled into her for all of those years of her childhood. The stature of a lady is unyielding, they had told her. And so, even if she felt far from it, even if the sight of that mess of brown hair and those dark eyes framed by tattoos drew her gaze and flushed her face with red – she was strong, she was firm, she was proud. 

“Take a seat, please,” She spoke with a confidence that surprised even her, her tone all but unrecognisable as she drew on a strength that she never knew she had. Maker, if only she had had this strength before, with Marcus, if only...

“Claudette?” Rylen asked as he approached the table with caution, his steps slow and purposeful, as if he were a man caught in the eyes of a wild quillback. “Is everything ok? Is something wrong?” 

“Nothing is wrong, thank you,” She smiled then, and that’s when she realised that the smile had fallen from her face long ago, before his arrival, even. Perhaps it was the tea. “Just take a seat, please.”

He did as she asked, but he was still wary, she could tell. His muscles were tense, his fingers grasping at the back of the chair as he pulled it out from beneath the table and planted himself down in front of her where he watched her, his brows furrowed, his dark eyes fixed on her own, watching her, scrutinising, studying. “I've been so worried–”

“You shouldn't,” She all but snapped at him as she fought against the promise of his affection, cutting it short before it could even take root. But then guilt washed over her, and her resolve dropped, fell from her with a heavy sigh and a brief slump of her shoulder. “I'm sorry...I just meant that, well...nevermind.” She straightened her back again, her eyes drifting towards the window behind him, where she thought she could see a hint of red through the fog covered glass. “I'm not very good at this…”

“At what?” He asked her, but she gave no answer. “Claudette, I haven't seen you in ages, and you always said that when you were next in Val Royeaux we would, well, see each other. But now you look like you'd rather be anywhere else.” He shook his head with a sigh, his hand moving to rub the skin of his face before he paused suddenly, his eyes turning to find hers once again as he slowly lowered his hands. “Is it because of what happened? With your husband, I mean?”

“How do you–” She cried, her composure slipping somewhat before she had the chance to recover. “I don't know what you mean.”

“Your brother told me,” He admitted, displaying some discomfort as he shifted in his chair. “Or, well, he told me that _something_ had happened. But he didn't seem to know what exactly.”

“Look, nothing happened…” She began, but her words became lost as she struggled to find her voice, her reason, her excuse.

“Claudette, you can tell me–” He said with a sigh, leaning forward to grab her hand which rested on her mug of tea. But she pulled away viciously, clutching her arm to her chest before she realised her mistake. She lowered her arm, placing her hand in her lap with her hands wrapped tightly around each other, her fingers hiding those remaining traces of purple that had been etched into the skin of her wrist. “What's wrong? What did he do? Has he hurt you?” He asked her. But then his eyes widened as he watched her squirm and avoid his piercing gaze with a glance towards the misted window. “Claudette, don't go back there, stay here with...with your sister. You don't have to sit there and be bullied by a man who who doesn't respect you, who doesn't know your worth. You deserve better than that.”

“Do I?” She cried, her tone rising in pitch as she fought against both the concern he was laying upon her, and the tide of regret that was beginning to churn inside her. “I'm not some poor young girl who was forced into a marriage I didn't want. I didn't bury my head in the sand and pretend it would just go away, pretend I didn't know exactly what I was doing. I am a noble lady, I was groomed for this, prepared for it. I knew what I was getting into, because we all do, all of us Lady’s. We marry these men who will never love us; if we're lucky, they might tolerate us. But they will have affairs, and they will drink and gamble and...order prostitutes. And we tolerate them, because that's what we do.” Jennifer hadn't, she was strong, she was brave, she changed her future, her path. Even when their mother had cried in indignation, told Claudette that a real lady would never have done such a thing, would have simply accepted her fate; being lied to, cheated on, hurt, it was a rite of passage to a woman of noble standing, she had made that very clear. But Claudette did not have the strength to defy her mother’s words, to follow in her sister-in-law’s footsteps and, besides, there was one key difference: Jennifer had done nothing wrong. But Claudette, well, was she not also the guilty party here? Had she not earned the wrath that Marcus had inflicted on her? 

She sighed with those vicious thoughts swimming through the mire in her mind, and she continued on the path she had begun to forge, despite the voice of opposition that cried from within her aching heart. “I am a Trevelyan, and when I found out how he was spending First Day, I did what us Trevelyan's always do: I got angry, and I wanted revenge, and you were the one who suffered from that anger. And I am so sorry that it had to be that way, that I did that to you.”

“You don't have to be sorry,” He told her. But how could she believe it, when her deeds, and the pleasure she had gained from them, had eaten at her ever since First Day. And then there were the phonecalls, the texts, the planning for whenever they would next meet. It was all wrong, as the Maker knew, as she knew. “You've done nothing wrong. You're allowed to be angry at what he did. Maker, anyone else would be. Because you don't have to tolerate that, whatever people might say. You deserve all the kindness in the world, and if he won't give it to you–”

“No, don't, please,” She pleaded. “I should never have involved you in this. This is my burden to bear, not yours. I should not have used you to play games on my husband.” She was rushing now, her words stumbling out of her mouth as she fought to say her piece before her aching heart could protest even more. “But, I can’t change what happened, what we did. I can only decide what happens next.” The words were a mantra, a promise, a reminder of what she was here for, what she had to do. And they would drive her forward on this path she had set herself upon, more so than the Chant could ever have hoped to have done. “I'm sorry I have to do this, but there's nothing else I can do…”

“Claudette?” He was about to argue, she knew, but she also knew that she had to stop him before he could lead her off of the path she was determined to tread. Because she was walking a tightrope with her convictions driving her forward, keeping her on the straight and narrow, but she knew that those convictions were fragile and weak, and she knew that he could easily stear her off her course with not much more than a desperate plea. Strength, resilience, pride. That's what she needed now. So she closed her eyes, and breathed, and she took the next step.

“Thank you for everything you've done for me, Rylen,” She straightened her back, held her chin high, fixed her gaze upon him, and drew upon that conviction that had led her here, that had got her this far. “But I was in the wrong. This is my issue, my problem, and I brought you into this without your permission. So now I have to let you go, let you get on with your life, away from me. And I will go back to my life, and my marriage, and my family.”

“No, please don’t do this. I don't want to be away from you,” He said, his words so quiet that she struggled to hear them above the noise of chatter that swelled around then. “I want to be _with_ you. I always have done, ever since we met on First Day. You’re so beautiful, and so kind, and you’ve made me so happy. And I thought you felt the same, I thought you were excited to see me again after all these months, we’ve been planning this for so long.” He leant forward and grabbed her hands in earnest, his eyes staring into the far reaches of her soul as he made one last plea for her heart. “Please, Claudette. Don’t do this, don’t give in to his hatred. None of this was your fault, you weren’t in the wrong, you don’t have to punish yourself. Please, I don’t want to lose you. I can’t stand the thought of you going back to him, after everything he’s done. Just, please, don’t go.”

“I'm sorry, I really am. But we just…I...” She almost gave in, almost lost, at the sound of his voice breaking, at the sight of water gathering in his eyes. But she couldn't, not now, not after everything. “I can't. It’s not right...” She sighed as she rose from her chair, pulling herself out of his grasp and tearing her gaze away from his. But before she could leave, she turned to him one last time, and she saw the confusion in his eyes, the hurt. And that was when she truly wished that it was all different, that she had never married Marcus, never been made to carry this child. But that wasn't the world she had been brought into. 

_You can't change what happened, but you can decide what happens next_.

She took a deep breath, and took that final step on the path she had chosen. From somewhere deep within, she found her strength, her resolve, her pride once again, and she sealed her fate.

“In another world? Maybe we could have had something. But...not this one.” That was when she left, and she didn't look back. Not even when he called to her, shouting her name above the din of conversation, so that she was sure that all those in the cafe now knew what she had done, knew her sin.

No, what she had done on First Day had been her sin. And now she had paid the price for it.

She walked away from the cafe in a hurry, the door slamming shut behind her as she blinked away the tears that were forming in her eyes. And as she did so, she told herself that she had to be strong, firm, proud. 

But in the back of her mind, there was a voice that told her that she had made a very big, very grave, mistake.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thirdly, sorry o.o
> 
> The next bit I'll be working on will be Chapter 42 where the fallout of this will be explored back in Amelie's POV, so make sure to look out for that sometime next week! Thanks for reading! <3


	10. Dreams

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Amelie has left Claudette to decide her own fate, and now she waits in her sister's home for Rylen to arrive.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Claudette's POV of Chapter 43 but you can read them in any order, although I think you get the best impact if you read the main story first!

Claudette was alone.

It had been a long time since she had been alone. The last time she had been left alone like this had been back at Heartacre House, when she had retreated to her room after facing Marcus’ wrath. But then again, she hadn’t really been alone, Sammy had been there. 

Sammy wasn’t here now.

Neither was her sister, or her brother, or the lady who she had stubbornly called her sister ever since she was 12 years old in spite of the protestations of her mother. None of them were here anymore. But that wasn’t necessarily a bad thing.

She needed this space, this time, to collect her thoughts. She need to figure out where she would dare to tread next without all of those voices telling her different things, or not telling her anything at all, in some cases. No, it was best this way, being alone.

But she wasn’t alone for nearly long enough. Thoughts were still stringing together in her mind, lines and words and phrases swam around her mind even as she heard a sharp knock upon Amelie’s front door. She wasn’t ready. But, Maker, how could she ever be?

Those lines and words and phrases that had been dancing around her scrambled thoughts almost came together into something tangible as she approached the front door with slow, deliberate steps. She had sentences, paragraphs, an essay, almost. She was ready, prepared. Then she opened the front door. Then she saw Rylen. He stood upon the doorstep to her sister’s home with the sun setting behind him, throwing golden rays of light upon his brunette locks of hair. He was weary, tired, drained, she could tell. And it was her who had done that to him.

Those lines, those words, those phrases that she had formed in her mind, they all fell apart even before they could make it to her lips. Instead, they fell from her in a stream of tears that poured down her face. Uncontrollable. Unstoppable. They burned her eyes, her skin, emptying out from the depths of her aching heart and leaving a salty taste upon her lips as she uttered two words, the same two words, over and over again until her throat was raw and dry.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” Her words were hardly audible amidst the streaming of her eyes and the shaking of her shoulders. But somehow, he heard her. Or perhaps he didn’t. Perhaps he just felt sorry for her. But, regardless, he took her into his arms, he held her while she cried, and he whispered in her ear that it would he OK, that he was here, that he forgave her.

_He forgave her._

But it wasn’t enough for her tortured mind. There was still so much for her to say to him, to explain, even though he shook his head when she tried to talk, when he urged her to sit down and maybe have some tea. She shook her head at that, too. She didn’t want any more tea, she had had enough for today.

“Please, let me explain,” She said finally with a sigh, leaning into the soft cushions of her sister’s sofa as she brought the nearby pink blanket over her body, cuddling the soft fabric to her ches. Rylen was sat on the other sofa, facing her, watching her with his brows furrowed in concern as she spoke with a tremor to her voice.

“You don’t have to–”

“Please, Rylen. Let me say my piece,” She pleaded, looking into his gentle gaze with her eyes wide and her hands clasped around the soft fabric of the pink blanket. He closed his eyes with some degree of reluctance, and that was when she dropped her gaze and cleared her throat, before launching into a speech that she must have come from all those scrambled thoughts she had been so desperate to pull together not so long ago. “I thought that breaking up with you was the right thing to do. I thought that I had to do right by my husband, because _I_ had been the one to do wrong by _him_. But then I realised that, no, I hadn’t done wrong by him. He had done wrong by _me_.”

She paused for just a second, a second to breathe, to steady her ragged breaths and calm the anxiety that flowed gnawed at the pit of her stomach. “You were right, I don’t deserve to be treated like that. I deserve to be treated with respect, with affection, even. Just like how Cullen treats Amelie. Maker, you should have seen the way he looked at her in the shops today. Marcus has never looked at me like that. And now that he has his precious _heir_ , he never even really looks at me anymore.” She scoffed as she tucked her now very loose braid back behind her ears. “So why should I spend the rest of my life feeling miserable, just because I feel that I owe him my loyalty, when I know full well that he will never give me that same loyalty? That same respect? No, I won’t stand for it any longer. If I want to be with you, then I will. He can’t stop me.”

“But, Claudette, what are you going to do?” Rylen asked hurriedly as he looked at her with his eyes once more filled with concern. “You’re right, of course. You shouldn’t have to stand for it. But I don’t want you to put yourself in danger. Maybe someone else should be there. I could be there if you wanted? Or Cullen?”

“Thank you, but I don’t think that’s a good idea,” She said with a sniff of her nose and a shake of her head. “I think that, maybe, this is something I need to sort out for myself.” He looked as if he were about to protest, but she cut in before he had the chance. “It’s OK, he won’t hurt me, not this time. You should have seen him when Jennifer was there, backed into a corner like all those poor dogs at the horrible races he gambles in...”

“Wait, who’s Jennifer again?” He interrupted her with his question laced with confusion. But he quickly retracted his words. “I’m sorry, I didn’t meant to interrupt.”

“No, it’s OK,” She said as she threw him an encouraging smile that was soon mirrored upon his own face too. “She was my sister-in-law. Well, I always called her my sister, or at least, ever since she married my brother. I was about 12, and I knew that Amelie was in the Circle, but I couldn’t remember her. So Jennifer was the only sister I had. She looked after me for a few days before I came here.” She told him, and she watched as he appeared to nod with understanding. But he remained silent, so she continued. “It was difficult for her, when she left my brother. It was about two years ago now, I think. She was bitter for a long time, and she said she still is, but now she’s made a real effort to enjoy what she has from life even if it seemed like it wasn’t going to plan. The thing is, my brother hasn’t been well and I think it made her realise that…” 

Her eyes had fallen on Rylen’s just as she had taken a moment to breath, but then she saw a look that she recognise. She saw him glazing over, just as her siblings did when she talked too much, just as her mother did before giving her her usual sharp retort. _You always talk too much, Claudette. No man wants to hear a lady talk for Ostwick._ “Oh, I’m sorry, I’ve been talking too much...”

“No, it’s OK,” He assured her, with a smile that made her heart skip a beat or two, and a hand which reached out to clasp her own, untangling it from the soft, pink blanket as he did so. “You can talk as much as you like.”

“Everyone always says that I talk too much…”

“No you don’t,” He told her with an encouraging squeeze of her hand. “I like hearing you talk, you’re always so passionate and excited about everything you say and do. It’s...nice.” She couldn’t help but smile at his words, words which made her heart all but jump out of her chest as warmth began to spread throughout her body and towards her cheeks. “Besides, hearing you talk like this makes me think that maybe you’re beginning to feel more like yourself again.”

Perhaps she was. Perhaps this was what she needed, some time away. Some time with people who loved her, cared for her, held her hand in the most gentle of ways and encouraged her, made her feel wanted. Perhaps this was what she had been missing. Affection, care, love.

“Claudette? Are you OK?” Rylen asked her, and she could see the concern that was on his face as he looked at her with furrowed brows. But she answered with a smile, and soon, he did too.

“I am, thank you,” She assured him, tracing the skin on the back of his hand with the delicate brush of her fingers. “But, um...could you maybe...stay here tonight? With me?” She asked him carefully, but she soon felt compelled to add some hurried, rushed words, as a tide of red flooded across her face. “Oh, I didn’t mean it like that. I just...I don’t want to be on my own, and I don’t know when my sister–”

It’s OK,” He said, rising off of the sofa and encouraging her to do the same with a light tug of her hand. “Come on, let’s go to bed. I know it’s early but, you look very tired.”

“I am a bit, yes,” She admitted with the faintest of laughs as she fell into step behind him, following him out of the living room and up the stairs as she recounted her journey of Ostwick to him, encouraged by his admittance that he not only endured her endless chatter, but enjoyed it. And it really seemed as if he did, too, nodding and smiling as they sat on the bed facing each other, with Claudette in her nightdress and Rylen still fully clothed. He never interrupted her, or rolled his eyes or distracted himself from the boredom of her tale. He sat and he listened, all the way up until the moment where she began to untangle her braid and set her brunette locks free.

“Wait! I liked your hair like that,” He cried in protest as she worked her fingers through her now tangled hair. “You should do it like that more often.”

“Oh, I’m sorry! But I didn’t do it myself. My brother did it for me while we were at the airport in Ostwick,” She told him with an apologetic smile as she swept her hair behind her shoulders. “I always ask him to do my hair when I feel nervous, it helps calm me down.” 

“Oh, well, I don’t think I can do that,” Rylen admitted with a laugh brought a warmth to her goosepimpled skin as she shivered in the cold evening air. “But, if you would like, I can be here with you while you sleep?” He held his arms out to her as he shuffled himself back towards the pillows that were stacked neatly at the top of the bed. 

“Thank you, that would be nice,” She told him as she moved to join him, bringing her head to rest upon his chest as his arms closed around her. “Just you being here is enough, I think. I might even have some nice dreams tonight.” She spoke softly into his chest as her eyes began to close, fluttering open once again as she felt him breathe a heavy sigh. “I mean, they have been nice, in a way. I’ve dreamt that I’ve escaped, that I’m in another world where I can be happy with all my family and friends, and with you. But now I guess I don’t have to dream anymore.”

“No, no you don’t,” Rylen’s words were soft and hard to make out, but that’s because he spoke into the mass of hair at the top of her head, his nose pressed against her scalp as he ran a hand through her long brown locks. “I’m here now, we both are.”

She wanted to agree, wanted to nod and smile and tell him that he was right, that they were together, and they would be for as long as they desired. But, before she could conjure any words, or will her body to nod or her lips to stretch into a smile, she drifted off into a deep sleep that was, for the first time in a long time, marred by the presence of dreams – good, or bad.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! <3
> 
> Updates may be a bit slower now because I have a busy few weeks ahead, but I'll see you guys again with another update whenever I have something ready!


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